Resume Writing For Engineers - How to Write a Successful One

Resume Writing For Engineers - How to Write a Successful OneWhat would you do if you were hired to write a resume for an engineer? Wouldn't you get nervous as it is with any job application you write? It's easy to be that way, especially when you are not fully prepared. The truth is that it is just as easy to succeed in this as it is in anything else you do, when you are confident in your ability.The first thing you need to do is to collect all the materials you will need to write your resume. Some materials include resumes for all possible engineering positions. You will also need to research and read a lot of resumes online. Your resume will only get as good as the content of it.In order to make your resume as attractive as possible, you should make it look professional and very focused on your career. The content must contain enough information to let the hiring manager or recruiter know that you're up to the task.If you have strong communications skills, then that's a plus. Howev er, the content should be written to appeal to the reader and contain some kind of interesting information.There are plenty of websites online that offer excellent job placement services. These sites can also help you create your resume with some of the services that they offer. Keep in mind that not all of these sites will be able to give you free services, so it's a good idea to find one with a minimum charge.In your resume, you will need to address each of the areas that you would like to emphasize. For example, if you have expertise in environmental monitoring, mention it in your summary paragraph. This will highlight your talents and give you a good start.Writing a resume for engineersis not difficult. All you need to do is find a good resource for help and put it to use. You will be surprised how quickly you learn how to craft a successful resume.

What Your Resume Should Look Like In 2018

What Your Resume Should Look Like In 2018 Let’s be honest: Writing a resume is a drag. After all, this isn’t exactly a task for the gainfully employed. If you’re reading this, you’re probably out of work or daydreaming of greener pastures. But here’s the good news: Learning how to write a killer resume can ratchet up your job search, cement your status as a top notch candidate, and increase your chances of landing a new gig. In other words, it’s a major game changer. Here are some expert-approved resume tips for nailing the job search this year, and a downloadable template that will make the process a whole lot easier. Note: Each numbered tip corresponds with the example resume below. (Some resume elements courtesy of TopResume; downloadable template here) [1] Resume design matters A good resume design is eye catching, without being an eyesore. This template is simple and clean, with a sleek aesthetic that sets it apart from every other resume out there. Don’t be too heavy-handed with italics, bold, and all-caps â€" use them sparingly, and for emphasis. The best resume fonts look good on both a screen and on a sheet of paper, so choose a modern style, and do a test print before you send it off to employers. “If content is king, then aesthetic value is queen,” says Debra Wheatman, President of the New York-based Careers Done Write. “I would stay away from Times New Roman. That’s the sweatpants of font.” [2] Format your resume so the juiciest parts are up top The top one-third of your resume is valuable real estate, so make it count. Instead of a mailing address, a good resume tip is to add your LinkedIn address next to your name and contact info. And while you’re at it, make sure your LinkedIn profile is as robust as it can be, and an accurate reflection of your candidacy. “The overwhelming majority of professions use LinkedIn,” says Amanda Augustine, TopResume’s career expert. “So your profile not only has to exist, it also has to support your resume.” Objective statements on your resume are a thing of the past (“This is a marketing document, not a Dear Abby letter,” Augustine says). Use a summary statement instead, which is basically just an elevator pitch for why you’re the best person for this job. When it makes sense, change the title on your resume to match how it’s presented in the job listing, Augustine suggests. If the company is looking for a “Marketing Communications Director,” and you meet the qualifications, it’s in your best interest to use that title something like “Senior Manager of Marketing and Communications.” If you’re applying for a job you’ve never held before, it’s best to lead with something more generic, like “Marketing Professional.” Even if it’s not a perfect match, your resume summary statement can provide some context. “View everything through the lens of ‘what do I want in my next job?’” Augustine says. “If you want to be competitive in today’s job market, you have to be able to advertise yourself.” [3] Beat the resume bots Large companies don’t have time to parse through the numerous resumes they get for every open position. So they get applicant tracking systems to do it for them. It works like this: When you upload your resume to an online career portal, an ATS scans it for keywords applicable to the job you’re applying for. The main function of these programs is to whittle down candidates, so the majority of resumes are swiftly eliminated. “Normally, over 75% of candidates are taken out of consideration before a human ever sees their resume,” Augustine says. “So you have to strategize your resume based on a piece of technology.” ATS systems are trained to scan vertically, so resumes that are aligned down the center are a safe bet, Augustine says. Another key to passing the bot test is tailoring your resume to include some of the keywords or skills from each job posting. If you’re unsure of which words to choose, Augustine recommends pasting the text from the ad into a free word cloud app, which will tell you which resume skills, technologies, and qualifications the posting references most frequently. “You want to make sure whatever you’re listing is matching up with whatever they’re asking for,” she says. “That’s the greatest insight you have as to how they’ll evaluate your application.” [4] Find a balance To give the eye some variety, use a mix of paragraphs and bullets throughout the resume body. The same principle goes for the actual content. When you’re deciding what resume skills to add, technical and other expert-level know-how should definitely get first dibs. Certain soft skills, like those that signal leadership, negotiating, and communication skills, are OK to add to your resume in moderation. But be selective â€" this resume template nods to public speaking and event planning, and not punctuality or attitude, for a reason. “You want to be avoid being overly fluffy,” Wheatman says. “Employers are looking for concrete skills. If they’re filling an engineering position, they don’t care how ‘outgoing’ you are.” [5] Walk the walk Avoid the temptation to stuff your resume with “responsibilities.” Employers care far more about your successes, and how you can mirror them at their company. Be specific, and provide relevant statistics wherever you can. Revenue wins, client growth, and budget savings are easy to quantify â€" and are resume gold. Don’t have any numbers-driven examples? Look to your skills section and think about how to validate that section. Are you the go-to resource for new hires, or for customer queries? Do you specialize in increasing efficiencies, or decreasing defects? Have you ever acted in a leadership capacity, even if it wasn’t in your job description? “Underneath the text, there’s a story,” Augustine says. “Find a way to connect the dots.” [6] Be selective The more crowded your resume looks, the less likely you are to hold a recruiter’s attention. Instead of cramming every entry-level job and internship you’ve ever had onto one sheet of paper (two sheets if you have more than 10 years of experience), pick and choose the roles most relevant to the one you’re applying for. Be discerning in your descriptions, too. The exact date you started and finished your previous job, or the year you graduated from college, is probably irrelevant. “Reading a resume is a boring, tedious thing,” Wheaton says. “Think about the most compelling things you want to share with your audience, and move along.”

How I Got Published (Without Having to Do it Myself) - Work It Daily

How I Got Published (Without Having to Do it Myself) - Work It Daily By CAREEREALISM-Approved Expert, Emily Bennington I’ve been asked a lot of questions about this, so I thought I’d put it out there once and for the record. First, I want to tell everyone publishing is not an easy process, but it’s not an impossible one either. If you have a great idea, a fair amount of talent, and an enormous amount of tenacity, you can make it happen. Here’s how it worked for me. I hope this journey gives you ideas and inspiration to tackle your big ideas too, whatever they may be. Lesson #1: Fix Your Product I’m a marketing girl at heart and this is a golden rule of the industry. In short, you can’t save a bad product. Period. Not with good marketing, good salesmanship, a lot of money, or even a mountain of tenacity. Especially in our social-media driven world, if you have a bad book (or business idea, widget, whatever), it’s not going to get off the ground regardless of what you do. For Effective Immediately, my co-author Skip Lineberg and I wrote the book we wanted to read as young professionals. We knew the content was good, we just needed to… Lesson #2: Find an Agent Oh...the mountain of books I have on this subject. Stacks and stacks. I read everything that had the word “agent” in the title and I became obsessed with finding free teleseminars/webinars with ANYONE from the publishing industry who could tell me how it worked. In fact, I would schedule my days around Rick Frishman’s teleseminars (this was a few years ago) and I asked so many questions that â€" eventually â€" he came to know my name. And that was the point. When I was confident that Rick a.) knew who I was, and b.) knew I wasn’t a dilettante â€" I sent him an email and requested a personal consultation about our project. In the interest of full disclosure, I did have to pay Rick for his time â€" and it wasn’t cheap! At the end of the call though, he recommended me to Linda Konner, a nonfiction agent interested in career titles. Because she knew Rick (never underestimate the power of a referral!), she agreed to read our proposal. She liked it and signed us. Sounds easy enough right? Here’s what happened in the interim: Our proposal took 6 months to write and was 40 pages long. (This also includes the time it took me to read a mountain of books with the word “book proposal” in the title.) Tip: In the proposal, I made sure to place a heavy emphasis on research that demonstrated the market need for our book and very detailed plans on how we were going to promote it. Skip and I have always had a strong vision for the layout, so we commissioned a designer to create a mock-up of a few sample chapters. I traveled to New York multiple times attending author courses and the BEA pre-show writer’s conference. Most of these events have a “speed networking with agents” component and I was determined that if I could just meet with the right people, my passion would sell them on this project. Incidentally, I did meet with Linda face-to-face prior to being signed â€" and after so many speed networking events, I had my elevator pitch d-o-w-n. Prior to being accepted by Linda, our proposal had been turned down by about 45 other agents. Enjoying this article? You could get the best career advice daily by subscribing to us via e-mail. Lesson #3: Be Patient Unless you’re Ivanka Trump, you’re probably not going to get accepted by a publisher immediately. No worries though. Some idiot rejected J.K. Rowling too. To give you an idea of the process for a first-time, unknown author, Linda accepted Skip and I as clients in June of 2005. She finally sold our book to Ten Speed Press (now a division of Random House) in September of 2008. The key is you need to have an agent who is as tenacious as you are and willing to bird-dog your book until it sells. I have a stack of faxes and emails from Linda documenting rejection after rejection (maybe 50 in total) and we had lots of close calls that fell through at the end for one reason or another. However, Linda didn’t give up and neither did we. Instead, Skip and I focused on ways to... Lesson #4: Build a Platform A platform is a body of work that positions you as the expert in your field â€" and believe me when I tell you it’s the Holy Grail of publishing. The good news is with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social sites, it’s easier to grow a community of followers than ever before. Skip and I are social media geeks, but we also made a point to write columns for regional business publications and speak to any college class or group that would have us. We never charged for any of our presentations because we were trading our time for the privilege of getting our name out in the market. And, despite the fact we now have a publisher to help market the book, the work has only just begun. If Phase One is writing and finding a publishing home for your title, Phase Two is actually selling it. So now we have to maintain a blog, find readers, connect with meeting planners, start speaking more frequently, creating videos, etc. I’ll continue to post updates on how it’s all going but, in the meantime, I’ll leave you with the Goethe quote I’ve kept on my desk since day one of chasing this dream. If you’re chasing one too, remember to “Be bold â€" and mighty forces will come to your aid.” Good luck! Did you enjoy this article? Read more articles by this expert here. Emily Bennington is the author of Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job. She hosts a popular blog for career newbies at www.professionalstudio365.com and can be found on Twitter @EmilyBennington. The photo for this article is provided by Shutterstock. Have you joined our career growth club?Join Us Today!